Author: Teddy Jones

On April 21/28, 2019 [depending on which calendar the faith community uses] millions of disciples of Jesus jubilantly celebrate the miracle of the resurrection. We rejoice in the fact that the tomb is empty and the Christ who emptied the tomb has filled our hearts and desires to fill every longing, gasping, sighing and panting…

Our reading today continues to focus our attention on the much-loved god in our midst, mammon. It may escape the attention of many but Jesus actually had quite a lot to say about Mammon. This is an excellent cue for us as we examine the state of the church. Let us use some of his…

The stranglehold that mammon appears to have over humans and the ways in which it worms its way into the faith community are of such gravity that we detain ourselves another week on the subject.  John 2: 13 When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem.14 In the temple courts he found…

“Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!” Jesus roared. There is no way our series on the state of the church address could have omitted this example, in John 2:16, of Pastoral concern for the state of the church. We spoke last week of the disorientated state of the…

When Prayer Becomes A Sideshow         In using John’s Gospel as part of the text for this State of The Church address we indicated that John wrote to the church at Ephesus. No doubt he would have seen certain disturbing signs and used his first-hand knowledge of the life and ministry of Jesus as the…